Page 80 of Saved By the CEO

I pace to the window and back, the floor cold beneath my bare feet. My pulse is pounding now, fueled by anger and something else I don’t want to examine too closely.

“I haven’t been thinking properly,” he says. His voice sounds different. Less controlled. “I just?—”

“What?”

A breath leaves him. “I just call.”

I stop pacing. “Why?”

He laughs once, but the sound is drained of any amusement. “You’re smart, Carly. You can probably figure that out yourself.”

There’s an answer sitting just beyond the reach of my thoughts, but I’m terrified that if I turn toward it, even slightly, it will change everything.

I sit back down on the edge of the bed.

“You should go back to sleep,” Andrew says. His voice is closed off again, the brief crack in it already sealed.

I should.

Instead, I listen as the faint tapping resumes.

“What else are they trying to cut from Marlowe House?”

There’s a beat before he replies.

“The childcare center,” he says. “They want to lease the space to a pharmacy. There aren’t enough children in the area to make the current plan financially viable.”

I think about the hospital. About the old maternity rooms that had sat empty long before RHV appeared, slowly being turned into storage, outpatient rooms, and whatever else the hospital needed more than beds for new mothers.

“They’re probably right.”

“Maybe.” His voice hardens. “But if we keep removing everything families need because there aren’t enough of them, we’re helping create the problem we claim to be responding to.”

I lie back against the pillows. Outside, headlights sweep briefly across the ceiling before disappearing again.

I picture Andrew alone at his desk, fighting to keep six apartments affordable and save a childcare center that may spend most of its time half-empty. It makes it annoyingly difficult to stay furious with him.

“I’ll look at the budget tomorrow,” I say. “Maybe there’s somewhere else they can cut.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know.”

A moment passes.

“I won’t do it again,” he promises.

I sigh.

“Good night, Andrew.”

“Good night, Carly.”

The line goes dead.

I lower the phone onto the mattress and stare at the ceiling.

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